The Thirteenth Sign

You all must have heard about the 12 signs of astrology, starting from Aries to Pisces. You all must have read about what are your sign's characteristics, sometimes relating to it and sometimes not really. But what would happen if one day you wake up and someone says that you've been reading the wrong sign all along? In case, you have been thinking of being Gemini and suddenly come to know you are an Aries? For me, that would be really stressful. (Afterall, Cappi's don't like mismanagement and change that much xD)

Luckily, I haven't been tormented by such event but in January of 2011 many people had been woken up to the news of Ophiuchus. (OFF-ee-YOU-Kus).

On January 9 2011, a lifestyle reporter Bill Ward working for the Minneapolis star tribune found an old article written on Oct 23 2007, noting the westward shift of constellations known as The precession of equinoxes. Getting excited to have found something so huge he went along with Park Kunkle (Astronomer at Minnesota planetary) to post the news of having found the 13th sign of Zodiac Ophiuchus (Serpent Bearer in Greek) on livescience.com and asked for it to be added as the 13th sign of Zodiac.

I'll leave it on you to think what would have been the general public, media and astrologer's reaction. And move on to actually letting you know about the 13th sign or lack of it in astrology.

So, let's start with this precession of equinoxes. Ages ago Babylonians came up with the whole science of astrology. They looked at this beautiful belt of stars right along earth's equator which consisted all the constellations and named the signs based on what constellation the sun was visiting.

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Like during Harvest period the sun was in the Aries constellation so they named the first sign Aries. Simple right, because back then they didn't know about this precession of equinoxes.

Later, in 134BC, Hipparchus of Nicaea was looking at a star in Scorpio constellation and thought to note them down. He included the longitude and latitude of each star every night. Then he went a step ahead to see the other notation from the past and came to know that the star's position has changed due to earth's change of axis.

So, what's this change of axis? You must be familiar about the Earth's rotation (which brings day and night) and its revolution around the Sun (which brings seasons around the year) now, there is one more way how Earth rotates. It is its rotation through the milky way in 10 miles per second. In this rotation Earth visits all the Zodiac (as they were back in Babylonians time) this is called Age of signs.

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Like when Earth was in Pisces, (Age of Pisces) we noticed the Birth of Christianity, faith, and art. There are many other such ages which have been noted:

Leo (10,000 to 8000BC) when painting in caves were famous, Cancer (8000 to 6000 BC) when farming techniques and housing system of society was developed. And so on with Gemini (6000 to 4000BC), Taurus (4000 to 2000BC), Aries (2000 to 1BC), Pisces (1 to 2000 AD) approximately. And then there is Age of Aquarius which will show great growth in technology and brotherhood. Some astrologers believe it has begun and some think it won't be arriving until 600 or more years.

Now, as Earth was travelling through all of these Ages it had this small wobble, in every 72 years. That wobble made it shift a little in a westward direction and hence everything isn't aligned as it was back in Babylonian time. That is the precession of equinoxes on which basis the 13th sign was demanded to be added.

Although, this also means that Earth will keep wobbling and once again be just as aligned as it was back in Babylonians age. Until that happens our astrologers are smart to look back at those alignments and make a quick calculation.

Also, the astrologers haven't completely ignored this: there is a whole section called sidereal astrology which counts this westward shift in its birth chart. It is mainly practised in India. This astrology puts more emphasis on the moon, rather than the Sun like in modern astrology.

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Back to Ophiuchus, here's what the new table of signs would be like with Ophiuchus:

Capricorn: Jan 20 to Feb 16
Aquarius: Feb 16 to March 11
Pisces: April 18 to May 13
Arise: May 13 to June 21
Taurus: June 21 to July 20
Gemini: July 20 to Aug 10
Cancer: Aug 10 to Sep 16
Leo: Sep 16 to Oct 30
Virgo: Oct 30 to Nov 23
Scorpio: Nov 23 to Nov 29
Ophiuchus: Nov 29 to Dec 17
Sagittarius: Dec 17 to Jan 20

As you can see these dates are overlapping, which is not right even if we count the cusp of signs. Also, Ptolemy who is considered the father of astrology has noted 48 constellations back in his time. (IAU has now decided it to 88) but here is the fact: you don't get your characteristics from constellations, you get it from the planets.

Like the ruling planet of Capricorn is Saturn (who is a planet to represent groundedness, growth and responsibility) or Aries is Mars (who represents fire, aggression and energy). While Ophiuchus being a constellation doesn't have a ruling planet or any characteristics. So it is not valid like 88 other constellations to be the 13th sign of Zodiac.

Now, you must have noticed astrology is much more science than just believing and there is much more to this apart from basics, in case you are interested to know then you can check out an essay written by Susan Miller on her website astrolgyzone.com which is one of the main sources for this article. And I hope there is something wonderful written in your stars ;)